A.W. Pink on God does not love everybody!

One of the most popular beliefs of the day is that God loves everybody, and the very fact
that it is so popular with all classes ought to be enough to arouse the suspicions of those
who are subject to the Word of Truth. God’s Love toward all His creatures is the
fundamental and favorite tenet of Universalists, Unitarians, Theosophists, Christian
Scientists, Spiritualists, Russellites, etc. No matter how a man may live—in open
defiance of Heaven, with no concern whatever for his soul’s eternal interests, still less for
God’s glory, dying, perhaps with an oath on his lips,—notwithstanding, God loves him,
we are told. So widely has this dogma been proclaimed, and so comforting is it to the
heart which is at enmity with God, we have little hope of convincing many of their error.
That God loves everybody, is, we may say, quite a modern belief. The writings of the
church-fathers, the Reformers or the Puritans will (we believe) be searched in vain for
any such concept. Perhaps the late D. L. Moody—captivated by Drummond’s “The
Greatest Thing in the World”—did more than anyone else last century to popularize this
concept.

It has been customary to say God loves the sinner, though He hates his sin. But that is a
meaningless distinction. What is there in a sinner but sin? Is it not true that his “whole
head is sick”, and his “whole heart faint”, and that “from the sole of the foot even unto
the head there is no soundness” in him? (Isaiah 1:5,6). Is it true that God loves the one
who is despising and rejecting His blessed Son? God is Light as well as Love, and
therefore His love must be a holy love. To tell the Christ rejector that God loves him is to
cauterize his conscience, as well as to afford him a sense of security in his sins. The fact
is, that the love of God, is a truth for the saints only, and to present it to the enemies
of God is to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs. With the exception of
John 3:16, not once in the four Gospels do we read of the Lord Jesus—the perfect
Teacher— telling sinners that God loved them! In the book of Acts, which records the
evangelistic labors and messages of the apostles, God’s love is never referred to at all!
But, when we come to the Epistles, which are addressed to the saints, we have a full
presentation of this precious truth—God’s love for His own. Let us seek to rightly divide
the Word of God and then we shall not be found taking truths which are addressed to
believers and misapplying them to unbelievers. That which sinners need to have brought
before them is, the ineffable holiness, the exacting righteousness, the inflexible justice
and the terrible wrath of God. Risking the danger of being mis-understood, let us say—
and we wish we could say it to every evangelist and preacher in the country—there is far
too much presenting of Christ to sinners today (by those sound in the faith), and far too
little showing sinners their need of Christ, i.e., their absolutely ruined and lost condition,
their imminent and awful danger of suffering the wrath to come, the fearful guilt resting
upon them in the sight of God—to present Christ to those who have never been shown
their need of Him, seems to us to be guilty of casting pearls before swine.
If it be true that God loves every member of the human family then why did our Lord tell
His disciples, “He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth
Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father..... If a man love Me, he will keep
My words: and My Father will love him” (John 14:21,23)? Why say “he that loveth Me
shall be loved of My Father” if the Father loves everybody? The same limitation is found
in <200817>Proverbs 8:17: “I love them that love Me.” Again; we read, “Thou hatest all
workers of iniquity”—not merely the works of iniquity. Here, then, is a flat repudiation
of present teaching that, God hates sin but loves the sinner; Scripture says, “Thou hatest
all workers of iniquity” (Psalm 5:5)! “God is angry with the wicked every day.” “He that
believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God”—not “shall abide,” but
even now—”abideth on him” (Psalm 5:5; 7:11, John 3:36). Can God “love” the one on
whom His “wrath” abides? Again; is it not evident that the words “The love of God
which is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:39) mark a limitation, both in the sphere and objects
of His love? Again; is it not plain from the words “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I
hated” (Romans 9:13) that God does not love everybody? Again; it is written, “For whom
the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth” (Hebrews
12:6). Does not this verse teach that God’s love is restricted to the members of His own
family? If He loves all men without exception, then the distinction and limitation here
mentioned is quite meaningless. Finally, we would ask, Is it conceivable that God will
love the damned in the Lake of Fire? Yet, if He loves them now He will do so then,
seeing that His love knows no change—He is “without variableness or shadow of
turning”!